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Monday, April 1, 2013

Tukaram Kolekar is a 70 year old man, lives in
an arid region ~ seeing him, many living in the city may not even talk to him
leave alone give him the respect he deserves………… he is a great man – one of the
great sons of this bharat varsha.

The summer is on ~ it is getting hotter in Chennai ~ water
sources are turning dry… in olden days, entire city depended on metro water to
quench their thirst.. now a days, most buy packaged water that comes in so many
names. The rural scenario is a bit
different. Sad to read of reports that
the worst drought in decades in the Mathwada region has begun pushing rural folk towards Mumbai.
Squeezed out of their villages by water scarcity, hundreds of young men from Maharashtra's parched interiors are now standing on the
city's doorstep in search of employment. They are seen hanging around
construction sites and railway stations in Vasai-Virar and Mira-Bhayander ,
waiting to be hired as labourers by contractors. Back home, they are farmers,
some of them even owning fields. They
have been forced to flee their lands seeing their animals die for lack of water
and fodder and not in a position to do the only thing that they had been doing
passionately – agriculture.

Over 3,900 villages in the state of Maharashtra have been declared drought-hit . The worst
affected districts are Nashik, Solapur and those in Marathwada and western
Vidarbha, which saw less than 10% of the expected rainfall last year. The name
Marathwada identifies one of the five regions in Maharashtra state of India. The
region coincides with the Aurangabad Division.
The region has a history ~ following one of the wazirs of Mughal empire,
Marathwada became a part of Nizam’s domain.
With Indian Independence, the Nizam of Hyderabad delayed the merger and
it was through police action that the merger took place. On November 1, 1956, Marathwada was
transferred from Hyderabad state to Bombay state. On May 1,
1960, Bombay state was divided into Maharashtra
and Gujarat states, Marathwada becoming a part
of the former.

From landowning agriculturist to a labourer in the city
should be humiliating – still they have to earn and maintain their family.
Life's tough, but for men from drought-hit villages who make a beeline for
Mumbai and its extended suburbs, there's little choice but to wait for good
times. They sleep on street corners, take a bath under the cover of darkness
and take turns to cook. Back home, TOI
reports that more than five lakh residents in Jalna district in Marathwada are
living a "curse" that threatens to worsen as the mercury soars. Municipal taps have run dry with water supply as scarce as
once in every 45 days - and that for just half an hour. Residents walk a
distance to get one bucket of supposedly "potable" water, which the
civic administration has declared "unfit to drink".Hospitals are turning away patients to
"maintain hygiene" and schools are rushing to finish syllabus and
exams before summer takes a toll on water tanker suppliers.

A failed monsoon has wreaked havoc not only on the lives
of farmers, but also for ordinary citizens who have been deprived of services
such as healthcare due to the water crisis.
Even industries which generally thrive are affected; all six units of
the Parli thermal power plant in Beed district of Maharashtra have been shut
down because of severe water shortage in the Marathwada region. The plant used
to receive water from the Khadka dam but the supply was stopped as the water
level in the dam has almost dried up.

The situation is grim and similar
in over 12,000 villages in 16 districts of Maharashtra
are in severe grip of water scarcity and that includes the whole of Marathwada
region. Aurangabad,
Jalna, Beed and Osmanabad are facing the worst crisis. All the natural sources
in these areas have dried up, and the water levels at the reservoirs have
dropped to an all-time low. With such water scarcity, the question of supplying
water to agriculture and industry is not even being discussed. The state has
requested the Centre for financial aid to ward off the grave crisis.

Only in tinseldom, you come across individuals
changing the way the society lives…….. Good Samaritans, UK based Daily Mail has
got this interesting news in their web edition dated 18th March 2013
titled “Meet Marathwada's water man”

Here is the report reproduced : “A 70-year-old man from the arid Marathwada
region has accomplished a feat the state government could not imagine - provide
water to 900 people in his village Shrungarwadi. At a time when the rest of Marathwada is
facing severe water crisis leading to exodus from villages, Shrungarwadi
residents are getting potable water at their doorstep, free of cost. This miracle has been made possible because of the
extraordinary zeal of a humble villager - Tukaram Kolekar.

Two years ago, when rains eluded Shrungarwadi once again,
forcing the villagers to trek more than 2km to draw water from a well, Tukaram
decided to find a permanent solution to the problem. He had a well which had gone dry. Tukaram dug up a
borewell close to the well and started pumping water into it. His initiative
provided some relief to the villagers, but they still had to trudge some
distance to get water from the well. So Tukaram bought plastic pipes and laid
them from the well to the village. He also bought big tanks, placed them in the
village and began storing water in them. Today, the entire village collects water from the tanks.
To achieve this task, Tukaram invested his life savings and the income of his
family members in digging the borewells and buying hosepipes and tanks. "I
did it because God told me to," said the old man.

Tukaram's initiative has brought a smile to every face in
the village of Shringarwadi. Tukaram's family is not rich by any stretch
of imagination. His three sons and their wives are daily wage labourers who
crush sugarcane for a living. In all, Tukaram spent Rs 3.5 lakh to lay the
pipes and dig the borewells. While his sons did not object to the expenditure,
his daughters-in-law did rake up the issue. "The Mathara (old man) doesn't listen to
anyone. Earlier, we used to complain about spending all our hard-earned money
on this but when he did not pay any heed, we stopped discussing the matter.
Now, we laugh about it and say the Mathara is all set to spend our life's
savings on this project," said Sindhubai, Tukaram's daughter-in-law.

Good Samaritan: Tukaram Kolekar

enjoys the sound of water
bubbling into a hosepipe from one of the wells he dug

After the borewells had been dug, other problems such as
intermittent power supply cropped up. Tukaram decided to sleep near the
borewell so that whenever power supply was restored, he could switch on the
borewell. Soon he began digging more borewells. Finally, he found water in the
upper reaches of the village, almost a kilometre from his home. Tukaram's
family is now actively engaged in the project. "Even
if we peel off our skin and stitch a pair of slippers for Tukaram, it we won't
be enough to repay what this man and his family have done for us," said
Jotibai Kolekar, a villager.

Real Hero …. And each one of us in India must
know of this great person : Tukaram Kolekar